British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic has completed the first commercial airline flight partially powered by biofuel. The Boeing 747 flew from London to Amsterdam with one of its four engines powered by a fuel brewed from coconuts and Brazilian babassu nuts. The plane's other engines contained regular jet fuel and were ready to go online in case there was a problem. While Branson claims that this is "vital breakthrough" for the industry, several environmentalists claim this is nothing more than a publicity stunt.

While this particular blend of biofuel was used on the initial flight, the company said that commercial flights would probably use "feedstocks" like algae for fuel. This successful test managed to avoid one of the pitfalls of high altitude biofuel flights, frozen biofuel. There was no word regarding the company's plans to employ biofuel on future flights.